A Braggart's Blunder
by Bloodstained Comma
Summary: Oneshot. "No one ever said that Antioch Peverell was a particularly humble man." MINOR spoilers for Tales of Beedle the Bard, nothing huge at all. Bigger spoilers for those who haven't read Deathly Hallows. See AN at top of fic for full summary.


_My first Harry Potter related oneshot. Actually, second, but I did two at the same time about the same general topic and I'm posting them in chronological order._

_This one is about Antioch Peverell. For anyone who's read __**Deathly Hallows**__, you know who I'm talking about. For anyone who hasn't, __**OMG MAJOR SPOILERZ AHEAD**__. For anyone who has and just doesn't remember, think of the Deathly Hallows themselves, and the three brothers; Antioch was the oldest brother who got the Elder Wand._

_The other one I'll be posting up soon is based on Cadmus Peverell (the one who asked for the resurrection stone)._

_The oneshots follow the last time they spent on earth's more mortal realm. Antioch, who killed an enemy and bragged about his new wand. Cadmus, who brought his love back from the dead, tortured from being somewhere she shouldn't, and killed himself to join her. This one, as I said, is the Antioch fic, detailing his final hours. For anyone who's read __**The Tales of Beedle the Bard**__, you'll probably recognize references to Brutus Malfoy, Emeric the Evil, and the Fountain of Fair Fortune. To those who haven't, there really aren't any major spoilers, as I only mention them. But, my obsession with tying things together in the HP world led to this fic, rightfully named __**A Braggart's Blunder**__._

_I encourage you to read on and leave reviews-a-plenty :D please?_

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The red sun of dusk crept slowly downward towards the far horizon in the western sky, the only compass to any travelers in the area in such old times as the fourteenth century. The day's transition was rather noisy, including the sounds of toads croaking, crickets chirping out their songs, and the incessant melody of a Nightingale playing out from day into night. To accompany these sounds of the forest and plains, there were the occasional foreign sounds of crunching leaves and twigs, as well as talking and laughter that made smaller animals flee in fear of some new, unbeknownst predator among them.

However, these sounds came from nothing more than three travelers, three brothers who were just on their way to their homes from a venture that had proven to be nothing short of dismal. The only thing worthwhile that had happened was their meeting with an old cloaked man who paced the forest floor when humans approached the raging river that separated grassland from forestry, a man that the animals had grown used to seeing. The three walking now, however, had fooled the wise old man, and were therefore subjects of wonder and fear to all manner of creatures creeping around. And yet they had no clue, for their conversation had nothing to do with their surroundings, but rather what they had gotten as reward for fooling the wise old man that occasionally walked those forest floors.

"How foolish are you?" said Antioch Peverell with a laugh to the youngest of his two brothers. "Did you honestly believe that old codger was really Death?"

"He must have, asking for something that would allow him a way to 'hide'," Cadmus agreed. "What we both asked for would test the man to see if he truly could give us whatever we asked for."

It was quite a surprise to both Antioch and Cadmus to hear their younger brother laughing at their mockery of him, and he was indeed laughing in a truly amused manner. He slung his newly acquired cloak of invisibility over his shoulder and, with a Cheshire grin, he spoke in quite an exultant tone.

"What does it matter if I believed the old man or not?" he asked with another bark of laughter. "Look what the two of you got out of the deal – a stick and a rock! I'm the one who walks away with something worthwhile instead of a couple things anyone could pick up off of the forest floor."

"I wanted to prove that the man was a fraud," said Antioch. "You apparently wanted to prove yourself to be ignorant."

"I honestly don't care what I've proved myself to be," said Ignotus happily. "I've got an invisibility cloak to show for my 'ignorance,' and one of the most finely made ones I've ever seen at that. I have something to pass on to my children when I die; you both just have something to toss into the forest."

"Might I remind you that you were the only one of us who even chose to tie yourself down to a wife and children?" said Antioch. "I myself have much more important things to worry about."

"Like searching for imaginary fountains?" suggested Ignotus, at which both he and Cadmus laughed.

The remainder of their journey together was an endless string of more or less friendly taunting and mockeries between the three brothers. They reached a road that led off in three different directions finally, and their journey together had come to an end. Ignotus turned onto the right-hand path, where a green field surrounded the well trodden dirt road; Cadmus went to the left, where clouds in the sky signified a storm brewing overhead; and Antioch continued his journey straight ahead into the thick forest in front of him, not entirely sure of where to head to next.

He was subject to this lonesomeness with no company but the "wand" he had received from the old man Death. He wasn't idiotic enough to say in front of his brothers that he was somehow inclined to believe that the elderly man had indeed been Death. He had appeared out of nowhere, had no wand, and shouldn't have been standing with as frail and sickly as he appeared, but there had been some sort of strange… _something_ resonating from him that made it seem more likely that maybe he _was_ the real thing.

So, Antioch retrieved the knobby, quickly carven wand from the pocket of his travelling cloak and examined it over. There was a strange little symbol at its base that looked like a rune. He wished he had examined it a little earlier to this extent, as he knew his younger brothers were much more knowledgeable at reading runes than he was. He sat against a tree near him on the forest floor and looked around for a subject to use the wand upon. He waved it absently at a tall pine tree in front of him with half a mind to make it levitate, but not in an overly serious manner.

Therefore, he was quite surprised when the large tree uprooted itself and hovered in front of him accordingly.

He let the tree fall back into its hollow in the ground, but it fell over anyway, away from Antioch (much to his relief, though he could have easily magicked it in the other direction had it attempted to flatten him), and he looked at the wand suspiciously. What would happen if he really _meant_ the spell?

He stood up from his seat on the forest floor and looked around for a particularly larger tree – or better yet, a patch of trees. With all of his years using the simple levitating charm, Antioch had never been particularly wonderful at making more than one thing float at the same time. So, he pointed his new wand at a group of trees he intended to make soar.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

And, consequently, the group of five trees uprooted themselves and floated high in the air. He pulled his wand back and watched them topple to the ground, with a triumphant laugh on his part. He looked at the wand in wonder; perhaps it truly was something special, that wand. Perhaps…. He had asked the old man specifically to make it a wand that would always win duels for its owner. That meant that any scores Antioch needed settling could easily be settled with this master of wands. That old man might have truly been something more than Antioch's younger brothers had suspected, for that wand was definitely much more than they had expected. That could mean only one thing: Amulus Castell would get his soon.

Antioch knew exactly where he was going from there. He was going to the village of Wickwar, a small town not too far from where he was, to see an old _friend_. Castell, a prosperous man who lived in that town alone in his home, would soon know what power was. Antioch couldn't honestly say he even remembered what quarrel he had with Amulus (nor did he even care to remember), but his hatred for the man burned on in his mind to a point that he wouldn't be satisfied until Amulus lay on the ground dead for his eyes to see.

He arrived at Wickwar in good time, though it was far after the time of dusk at which time he had met the old man. That bridge was far behind him now; there were much more important things to worry about than a man in a cloak and his brothers' mockery of his useless "stick". He knew right where Amulus Castell lived, and that he would be asleep in his bed at that very moment, soon to be rudely awoken by this traveler he so greatly despised.

Antioch's new wand broke through the magical seal upon the door of Castell's house – he was a much despised man even through his own town and needed to keep himself protected – with nothing but a simple "_Alohomora,_" all the more reason to believe that the wand did have some sort of special power to it. He opened the door of the house quietly, shut it behind him just as quietly, and looked around the homey, comfortable-looking little den. He stood in the middle of the clearest patch of rug and looked around. He then spoke aloud.

"Amulus Castell!" he said in a loud manner, like a fox taunting a bear to come claim it as its prey. "Trounce your cowardice and show yourself to me!"

Antioch waited, knowing that Castell was never one to refuse a challenge, even one that called him in the middle of the hours of night. It was quite a wait, but soon the candles that lit the den up came on and shown the place in a better light as Amulus Castell came out from a room towards the back of the house, looking somewhat ruffled and surprised, though not sleepy at all.

"Antioch Peverell," he said slowly, withdrawing his own wand and pointing it towards his foe, "what brings you here so late?"

"Early," Antioch corrected uninterestedly. "It's after midnight already." He pointed his own wand at Castell. "I just received a new wand as a sort of prize for vanquishing Death himself." He held it up. "Not the nicest looking of artifacts, but it managed to break through the seals you left upon your house with one little spell that I believe I learned at the age of six."

"It looks more like you snapped a twig off of the lower branches of an elder tree," sneered Castell, looking at the wand. "If that's your prize for evading Death, then I must say you were a fool to be conned by it."

Antioch glowered at the arrogant man before pointing his wand at him again. "You may choose not to believe me, but how else would I have lifted those charms? No doubt you had them set to alert you if an intruder broke through them, and you'd have been in the den by the time I finished otherwise."

"You are right in that –"

"I didn't come here for idle conversation, Amulus," he said.

"No, I would never suspect such a thing of you," said Castell with a sigh.

It was then, without warning that he waved his wand with a yell of _"Expelliarmus!"_, but Antioch was able to block the sudden spell only half-wittedly, and he laughed at this. "I warned you Castell," he said as the man looked at the knobby, poorly made wand in wonder. "It looks of nothing, but at its core is the will of Death himself!"

Antioch fired a silent stunning spell, which Castell only managed to narrowly doge with a sideways leap, and the spell blasted a hole through the wall behind him. "You're mad, Peverell," said Castell raising his own wand again. It was red light this time that came towards Antioch, but a focused block sent it towards the other wall.

"I'm mad, am I?" he asked idly as the red sparks charred the wall they hit. "I've managed to block a curse as powerful as the Cruciatus, which no wand should be able to block, a spell is technically cheating in a proper duel, and I'm _mad_? I somehow don't think so. Perhaps the old man who gave me this wand is a bit barmy, but I most certainly am not. I could win this fight without even firing a spell at you!"

"That would be a cowardly way to duel."

"And being killed by your own spell would be a shameful way to die, would it not?"

This time, Castell stepped out to the middle of his floor bravely, a completely rash move to make, though Antioch was curious to see what he had planning. This was until a green flash of light was soaring towards him in the air. He blocked it again, and it shot upward towards the ceiling. Antioch looked up in enough time to see a chain dangling an unlit cast iron chandelier from the ceiling to melt upon contact with the spell. He backed away from the landing point faster than Castell had managed to, and the fixture fell upon the other man. Antioch walked over to Castell when it landed. Castell was still alive, as it had pinned only his legs. However, he had dropped his wand. As he reached for it, Antioch stepped on it and slid it across the floor to himself. Castell looked up grudgingly.

"Pinned like an animal in your own trap," said Antioch smugly. He picked up Castell's wand and held it towards him, just out of his reach.

"Peverell, you're a cowardly man!" said Castell angrily. "Give me my wand and let us settle this fairly."

"I don't see why you'd want it," he said, picking the wand back up and holding it in front of his eyes. "It really is a dismal creation. Elaborately decorated, sure, but absolutely no power behind it. And you won't need it where you're going to be heading, anyway. Though I suppose I could leave you here until someone in the village finds you," he said slowly, "but I still won this cheap excuse for a wand fair and square, so you definitely won't be getting it back. In my opinion, this is fair justice," he added, leaning against the sofa next to Castell and the chandelier. "The spell you fired at me, _Avada Kedavra_, the Killing Curse, _that_ is a coward's charm. It definitely finishes a duel easily enough, but where's the fun in it? It's nearly impossible to block, and almost the only way to avoid it is to dodge it and fall over in the process, thus allowing your enemy to claim himself victorious. It takes away all the challenge and nobility of duels. If I might say so, I think I won fairly. I did block your spell, and your own cowardice resulted in that obstruction falling on top of you. Whose fault is that?

"Now, I would like to know, just for reference," said Antioch, "why am I killing you? I remember that we have a quarrel, but I barely remember what it even is. It started when we were quite a bit younger, didn't it?"

Castell allowed himself a grin. "You don't even remember? We were both much younger than we are today, you are right in that. Oh, you were _devastated_. Does the name Arya ring familiar at all? If anything, I have no reason to be angry with you except the many attempts you made on my life since I stole her away. Most unfortunate that she passed away at such an early age, she would have made a fine wife, don't you think? I suppose the pain of her leaving made you push her away from your mind, but that was all it was, a woman."

But before Castell could continue, Antioch raised his newly acquired wand and spoke the incantation, "_Avada Kedavra!_" And he watched as the green light hit the man, regretful that he had even chosen to ask for what reason he was killing him. He should have been satisfied with just his adversary's defeat.

He kneeled down in front of Castell and set his wand down. "And now Death can take you in place of me," he said before standing again and setting off out the door, leaving it open wide as he arrived outside. He looked around to check for any Muggles that might attempt to capture and hang him before Apparating, and disappearing silently into the night.

He arrived just as silently in front of the downstairs bar of an inn in London, one that no one would question his sudden appearance, for this place was one of the few wizards were welcome. He sat down at the bar of the Leaky Cauldron and looked around for a bartender. The loud and boisterous atmosphere was more than enough to lift anyone's spirits, and a bit of butterbeer or firewhiskey would surely help to do so more.

An old toothless man walked down the bar. "Ah-hah, Peverell!" he said. "Good to see you made it back, boy, how was the trip?"

"Not much of a success," said Antioch, digging in his cloak pocket for some gold. "We came to a wall in the middle of nowhere, and I'm assuming the fountain was beyond that, but nothing would take it down and it was too high to climb or fly over." He set a bit of gold down on the bar. "I'll take a firewhiskey," and the bartender took a glass from beneath the bar to sit on the counter. "I see bussiness is looking quite good, eh, Tom?"

"It's as my father always said," said Tom, "'Times of trouble bring prosper.' I'm not much happier about the witch-hunts these Muggles are going on, but the Leaky Cauldron is one of the only safe havens left, so it brings in amazing bussiness. I heard they nearly caught Cassius Malfoy's young son Brutus when the boy ventured outside and accidently flew on top of the roof of their house. Can you believe they're even willing to go after the children?"

"It's definitely brutal," said Antioch, "but that Malfoy should keep a better watch of his children anyway. He's not the smartest man I've ever met to say the least."

"No, I suppose not," said Tom. "What's got you in high spirits, anyway, if your quest proved to be so dismal?"

"Oh, not everything about it was terrible," said Antioch cunningly, taking out his new wand and twirling it around. "My brothers and I erected a bridge over a large river on our way back and a man claiming himself to be Death offered us rewards for our great wisdom in magic."

"And you got a stick?" said Tom with a laugh.

"Oh, no," he said. "I was out to prove the man wrong, honestly. I asked for the most powerful of wands, one worthy of a man who had vanquished Death. Cadmus, too add more insult, asked for a means by which to bring the dead back to life. Ignotus asked for a way to hide himself from Death so he could not be followed. I received this," he said, holding up the wand. "Cadmus received a stone, and Ignotus received an invisibility cloak. You'd think that Cadmus and I got the raw end of the deal, but this wand can uproot the tallest of trees with a simple levitating charm, unlock permanent seals with nothing but a simple _Alohomora_, and it can block the nastiest curses you can think of with the wielder of the wand barely paying any mind to his actions at all. An idiot could win a battle against the greatest wizard in the world with this. I've tested it already. Sad to say, Amulus Castell is now dead. For Amulus, anyway."

"You don't say…" said Tom wonderingly, examining the wand.

"Oi," said a man nearby as Antioch took a drink of firewhiskey. He directed his sight over to the drunkard, who looked as though he was close to falling off of his stool. "You say you beat Amulus Castell?"

"Indeed I did," he said, setting down his glass. "Defeated him with his own spell, I barely had to lift a finger. He acted as a coward would when he discovered the power of this wand, and attempted to use a Killing Curse to get rid of me. I blocked the curse and aimed it for the chandelier over his head. It landed on him before he could move and crushed him to death."

It was a fair bit of exaggerating, but no one had been there to see it happening. A few firewhiskeys later and Antioch had taken to telling an elaborate story to all those in the pub listening, in which his wand had put out a Fiendfyre started by Amulus Castell with an _Aguamenti_ charm that had made a title wave of water erupt from the wand in the process of defeating Castell. Everyone in the pub heard the story and gave their thanks and congratulations to him for getting rid of that old barmy braggart Castell, reveled in the stories of power of the wand that had apparently uprooted an entire forest.

No one ever said that Antioch Peverell was a particularly humble man.

After asking for a room to stay in for the night and getting a key on the house as a sort of reward of gratitude and awe from Tom himself, Antioch finally stumbled upstairs to "Room 11," where he fell onto the bed upon arrival and almost instantly passed out in weariness and inebriation in the dark, early hours of morning. Naturally, those still left in the pub continued talking of his triumph, though one man sitting in the corner, a young man was reveling silently in amazement at such a wand. He had heard the room number, and no doubt that drunkard had either left the door unlocked or not bothered sealing it with any extensive charms.

In the hubbub and chaos, this man snuck to the stairs and headed up and searched quietly for Room 11. He found it quickly, as it was one of the first rooms to be found, and saw that the door was even open a crack. It was almost too good to be true – that wand would surely be his.

He opened the door slowly without allowing it to creek and entered the room on tiptoes – and there was that knobby, ugly wand, sitting upon the bedside table of the inn bed next to the snoring buffoon who had told such elaborate tales of the thing. One would think, from his stories, that it truly was the wand of Death himself. He picked up the wand quietly. He knew plenty of wandlore, and knew that in order for it to truly be his, he would have to defeat its previous owner. As its owner was passed out cold, the only way was the cowards way.

The man pulled a sharpened knife from his pocket and slit the throat of the man as he slept, and Emeric then slipped away with his new wand off into the night.

_And so Death took the first brother for his own._


End file.
